


shooting stars

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: Even the grass and soil under his fingers feel wrong, out of place.Or maybe it’s just him.





	shooting stars

**Author's Note:**

> I AM BACK, BITCHES!

The ground is not as comfortable as he remembers.

Well, it’s not comfortable at all, really, when he finds a spot in a remote corner of the camp, far enough for peace but still close enough that he could help with any issue arising. The ground is cold when he sits on the floor, his back to a half-wall destroyed by time and the apocalypse. The soft wind makes him shiver. His legs hurt from too much effort, and the crisp air does something funny to his lungs.

Bellamy closes his eyes against the bright, dancing light of fires and tilts his head back. Never would he have thought that he would miss the dull neon lights of his cabin, or the slight smell of the recycled air. Even the grass and soil under his fingers feel wrong, out of place.

Or maybe it’s just him.

“Hungry?” comes Clarke’s voice. He lazily opens his eyes again and here she is, standing in front of him with twin bowls in her hands and an apprehensive look on her face. The strong smell of stew reaches his nose just in time for his stomach to growl loudly. Clarke smirks, just a little, as she hands him one of the bowls before she sits next to him on the ground.

He isn’t exactly certain what the food is supposed to be – he cautiously stirs his spoon through the watery texture and still has no idea if the little bits are carrots or parsnip or something else entirely – but beggars can’t be choosers. Not when this is the first real food he’s eaten in years.

They eat in silence, Clarke sitting cross-legged so her knee is pressed against his thigh. He’d missed that – their easy connection, how they can spend time together without the need to fill the silence with empty words. The situation is a mess, he has no fucking clue what’s happening with Octavia, and the new bitch-in-charge seems even worse than the ones before, but. But Clarke is back by his side. He found the other half of his co-leader duo again. So things can’t be all that bad, considering.

She takes his bowl when they’re finished, and puts it to the side with hers. Bellamy’s stomach no longer complains, but the awkwardness lingers. He shifts on the spot, as if it will help him shrug off the uncomfortable feeling, before he gives up entirely and goes back to leaning his head against the wall. The stars look different from here; he’d never noticed before.

“So…” he says, when the silence becomes too oppressive, too much. They have so much to talk about, and yet he settles on, “Madi, huh?”

The little firecracker. Which Clarke thinks too, if the way she smiles – amused and proud – is anything to go by. A quite snort escapes her nose before she shakes her head, just a little. “She’s something else. Reminds me a lot of Monroe, actually, and Raven. She’s amazing.”

“She knew me.” The way she only took one glimpse at him, and immediately knew. “Didn’t even have to introduce myself.”

“She knows everyone. I told her everything we did and – well, almost everything. She’s still young. But I told her and – she grew up knowing you.”

There is something there Clarke doesn’t quite say, a secret hidden in her chest, but Bellamy lets her have it. Even when they were so close they were Clarke-and-Bellamy, they still had their secrets. He can’t expect her to confess everything on their first night together again, not after so many years of absence and solitude. It wouldn’t be fair on her, when he’s keeping some many things too.

“She looks like you,” he comments and there it is again, that proud smile.

He remembers the early days, when she was checking on the younger kids and asking Bellamy to cuff the older ones for hogging all the food. When Jasper was calling them mom and dad just to make Monty, and sometimes Octavia, laugh. When she knew everyone’s name in the camp, while he couldn’t really be bothered.

She’s a healer, and a protector. Always has been. The Grounders got it so wrong when they gave her the title, it’s almost laughable. Death follows them but Death didn’t make Clarke. This girl is earth and life and love. Everything.

Bellamy loses track of time after that. His watch, the one Monty found and repaired on the Ark, bips the hour on the hour, but Raven has it covered. He doesn’t need to check on her anymore, she knows what she’s doing. And if not. Well, that’s what Murphy is there for. He will find a solution to their problems, bloodier and less diplomatic than Raven’s, if need be.

When he gazes up at the stars again, they have slightly shifted, and with them the moon. He finds the Ursa Major, and with her the North, and the Leo constellation not too far. It’s almost comforting to know, though so much has changed through the years, that this hasn’t. The stars are still bright, still where he expects them to be. He likes that about them.

He only startles, on the spot and out of his thoughts, when Clarke’s hand lands on his where it rests next to him on the ground. His stomach churns dangerously with feelings he refuses to explore, even more so when she leans her head against his shoulder. Her hair, blonde and pink, grazes against his bare collarbone and makes him shudder.

But not as much as her next words. “I missed you so much,” she whispers, low and careful.

And he knows her, he knows what she’s been through, her loses and her defeats, her struggles, her grief. He knows she guards her heart under that armour and those strong eyes, she guards herself against the rest of the world. Her confession isn’t an easy one, nor was it lightly offered. He closes his eyes and heaves a sigh against the lies stuck behind his teeth, the truths he hasn’t shared yet.

“I missed you too,” he answers, and it’s a truth and a lie and a betrayal all at once.

Things will never be easy for him on the ground, after all.


End file.
